Ajaxian Hacked or Link-Farming?

Skimming posts in my feedreader today, I noticed something very unusual. I tagged this post on PopBox, a JavaScript image magnifier as something interesting, but when I kept scrolling I saw spam links to various online prescriptions, etc., etc.

I scrolled back up, and unmarked the post, thinking I had run across a spam site in my feed, only to discover that the site in question is AJAXIAN, the well-known repository for all things AJAXy around the web.

Here’s the rub: It’s not visible from the website, but it IS visible in the feed, and in the source code. See photos, below:

Ajaxian Post:

Ajaxian Source Code reveals spam links:

Whois results don’t seem to show that Ajaxian and the spammy site are related… but how many layers of this onion are there?

Ajaxian Whois:

Domain Name: AJAXIAN.COM
Registrar: INTERCOSMOS MEDIA GROUP, INC. D/B/A DIRECTNIC.COM
Whois Server: whois.directnic.com
Referral URL: http://www.directnic.com
Name Server: NS.TECHTARGET.COM
Name Server: NS3.TECHTARGET.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 22-jun-2007
Creation Date: 01-mar-2005
Expiration Date: 01-mar-2009

Spammy Server Whois:

Domain Name: EXPERIENCENEWORLEANS.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: NS.COMPUCAST.COM
Name Server: NS2.COMPUCAST.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 08-aug-2007
Creation Date: 08-sep-1997
Expiration Date: 07-sep-2008

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Tags: Interestingly